QCF: Battletoads (2020)

6 years is a long time ago—hell, I bet some of you reading this aren’t even 26 years old yourselves, and couldn’t have possibly imagined what the vibe was back then. Well, there was one thing that dominated the scene that time in contrast to the occasional sighting at your local laundromat, and that’s over-the-top Arcade games.

 Among all of the Final Fight’s and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle clones, however, was Rare’s last hurrah for their infamous Battletoads series with a coin-op gem that wouldn’t get a proper console port until 2015 with Rare Replay, a compilation that included it along with the original title for NES. Needless to say, it made an impression with players; between the success of their inclusion onto that collection, and the various cameos the characters have made on other popular titles like Killer Instinct and Shovel Knight, the fever for more toads had grown. Unable to ignore the interest for it any longer, Microsoft and Rare decided to formally bring them out of retirement with a brand new title for the Xbox One.

 Partnering with Dlala Studios after working with them on Sea of Thieves, the latest entry to the franchise is a reboot that’s starkly different from anything the Amphibians have ever done before—and thankfully it’s a step in the right direction, albeit a undeniabley clumsy one.

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PPR 118

hange is good, right?—it’s scary sure, but if we don’t give the chance to try something different, then how can we really say that we’ve grown?

In this episode of Press Pause Radio, we’ll be debuting a new format that’s going to be different from the one we’ve done the last ten years. Instead of catching up on all the news and games that have happened between shows before the chosen featured topic, we have decided to release each of these segments as a dedicated episode in their own right, including the featured topic, with a projected weekly schedule in mind.

This new direction will not only cut down the average length of a Press Pause Radio episode from 2-3 hours down to a little over an hour at most, but it’ll also allow us to produce more content for you guys more seamlessly. We hope that this change will allow us to be the best version of what we aspire to be, because as it stands now, publishing episodes in the giant clusters that we have the last few years or so hasn’t done us, or you guys any favors.

So to start off, we’re starting Episode 118 with the news; we’ll be discussing the Super Mario Sunshine rumors, PS5 Patent reveals, various gameplay reveals at this past Gamescom, Bathwater Pyramid schemes, and a whole lot more.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

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PPR Presents Limelight: Sea of Thieves Beta Part 2

s we close in on the release date for the Microsoft exclusive Sea of Thieves, the fine people at Rare are allowing our ships to leave the harbor one more time in another closed beta this weekend. Please join our resident pirate-in-training Toast as he attempts to find treasure and avoid being puked on as we sail on the high seas. One thing to keep in mind is that Rare has specifically rolled out this closed beta as a stress test so expect some choppy waters as we say in the pirate business. I know that pun was from the last stream but I will keep on using it until people start getting mad at me. The stream will begin at 11pm Eastern 8pm Pacific time, and if any of our community are playing in the closed beta and would like to take on the adventure together look for Toast PPR.

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PPR Presents Limelight: Sea of Thieves Beta

vast ye mateys and all that other crazy pirate speech and shit; we be here to stream you some gameplay of Sea of Thieves, the newest title from Rare developed exclusively for the Xbox One and Windows 10!

Toast will be surfing high water in hopes of pillaging all the booty and glory in the name of Press Pause Radio in this exclusive beta that he’ll be streaming in this latest edition of Limelight. All hands hoay at 7PM Pacific/10PM Eastern on our Twitch channel! Check it out!

Watch live video from PressPauseRadio on www.twitch.tv

QCF: Yooka-Laylee

here’s been somewhat of a void in gaming that I’ve steadily seen getting filled the last two years. It seemed like forever and ago when we had something to play that was just whimsical or wholesome from a title that wasn’t developed by Nintendo. The dearth of platformers has led to KickStarter being used as a platform to those vocal few however; a demand for the comeback of games that featured charming characters who would run around and pick things up until something happens.

The Veteran team members from Rare’s Nintendo 64 days like Chris Sutherland, Gavin Price, and Grant Kirkhope heard that demand, and decided that the crowdfunding route was going to be their best shot at making it happen, and made it happen they did. These men and several other members formed the studio Playtonic Games, and launched a KickStarter for a game named Yooka-Laylee.

The spiritual successor the Bear and Bird Games that’re still held in high regards was able to reach its projected goal of $270,041 in less than an hour, and quickly went on to earn a million dollars faster than any other video game project has ever earned on KickStarter—this was a big deal.

Fast-forward to two years later to where the Platformer is just days away from release, and while I can’t tell whether or not that it’s still a big deal with games like Super Mario Odyssey, A Hat in Time, and a slew of others hitting 2017. I can tell you that they’ll have a hard act to follow because this Buddy-duo adventure is a great romp, even with its fair share of fumbles.

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PPR Presents Play Play: Yooka-Laylee

t was almost twenty years ago that a bear and bird captured the heart of nearly every cartridge-based gamer around—and that reverence for Banjo-Kazooie lives on to this day.

So much so that there’s been a noticeable void in the collectable platformer genre for the current generation that seems to be reserved for anything that’s 8-bit or 16-bit when it comes to retro tributes. Luckily, a group of ex Rare developers saw that gap, and decided to form their studio named Playtonic Games, crowd sourcing interest for a next-generation collectathon titled Yooka-Laylee, and man did that thing make a whole lot of money the moment it hit the internet—people were famished of this kind of adventure.

Well, the wait’s over, the game’s here, and while it might be George’s favorite game of 2017 so far, there are some problems that Ser and him just can’t help but address; here’s our Play Play for Yooka-Laylee.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

QCF: Killer Instinct

he Xbox One has been out in the wild for the last two months now and while the tides of success since have been up for debate, the huge two-toned box is currently playing host to one of the most sought after revivals within the last eighteen years of video games.

Microsoft is taking advantage of another Rare property to help spearhead it’s console launch lineup and unlike the dismal affair with Joanna Dark’s return, Double Helix brings back all of the ideals that made Killer Instinct the contender that it was and modernizes them into a spectacular display of brilliance.

Killer Instinct is an experience that’s capable of single-handedly inaugurating the fighting game genre into prominence for the new generation of gaming while validating the early adoption of an Xbox One on the other hand in spades.

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